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Saturday, December 27, 2014

Are you shocked I am posting so soon??? I kind of am! Currently I am "caught" up on my blog, and it's been great. We'll see how that carries into the new year!

Christmas morning came and was so fun. We hope you all had a magical Christmas. I've said it before, but the Christmas season was so wonderful this year. I loved it. So, Christmas morning we had some anxious kids! Clark came up to our room at 3am and wished us a merry Christmas. (I went to bed at 1am from talking with siblings). He then asked what he should do. We told him to go back to bed, ha ha. He then came up again a couple hours later and Shanna came up twice too I think. A little after 7 (and not much sleep because of interruptions) we rolled out of bed. For the past several years I make the kids wait to eat breakfast till I fix my hair and do my makeup. Lots of pictures are taken Christmas morning and I want to look half decent in them!

I was getting ready while Lee whipped up the cream for our mini pumpkin pies.

After family scripture reading and family prayer, we had breakfast. I don't think any of the kids ate their pumpkin pie. Most of them did drink egg nog though. I got a sweet deal on some egg nog at Sharp Shopper, which was fun.

Just as it was in my house growing up, there was quite the discussion for weeks about who got to go in first to see their stocking. Fortunately we have this blog so my kids went back and actually saw what order really happened the past couple of years. Last year somehow, the order was really random. No one cared so we just went with it. We decided this year to let Clark go in first. Next year Cal gets to go in first, then Shanna, and so on and so forth.

Oh, and real quick about the pumpkin pies....after all of that work I forgot to put sugar in at least one batch of pumpkin pie! Ugh.... What a waste! All of the mini-pies were sugarless, as were two of the big pies. Thankfully three pies had sugar in them. And none of the kids complained about their pies because none of them ate any! Well, a couple of the kids may have taken one bite and I think they all ate the whipped cream. I so admit, it was hard eating pumpkin pie for breakfast on Christmas when I was a little kid. I could skip breakfast everyday actually. I don't because I know it's good to eat breakfast. But I love the tradition and want to carry it on. Next year we might create a rule that at least half the pie needs to be eaten...as long as I remember the sugar!

We got a cute picture of the kids all lined up last year. You think it wouldn't be hard to get five kids to pose the same way. Then again, you may realize the challenge it actually is...

Time to see the stockings! We don't put much out by the stockings, but it's still fun anyway.

Clark got a robe.

Cal with his new Minecraft shirt.

I got a great deal on some costumes for the girls and Elden. I was lazy when wrapping presents and didn't want to wrap those too. Plus I was low on wrapping paper!

Haley with her can of olives. Haley, Shanna and Elden got olives in their stockings. Clark and Cal got sardines. Though I don't think they liked the ones I bought. I'll have to buy the same ones they buy over at Family Dollar next year.

Finding little surprises in the stockings is always fun!

One of the costumes was a Marie Antoinette costume, complete with wig and white gloves.

A robe for Lee too. (Elden also received one. Now we all have robes!)

The kids were eager to keep unwrapping presents so it didn't take long for us to start on presents under the tree.

Each year for gifts, our families rotate names. Lee's family and my family actually have the same rotation--it's quite nice! Stephanie "had" us this year and gave us some super fun gifts! Among them was this yummy summer sausage, along with two games, a DVD, some truffles, chocolates, and five awesome spatulas! (I can't remember if there was something else...

I thought I got a picture of the inside of the book. Elden got a Top Gear book featuring the top 100 fastest cars.

The past two or so years the kids (for the most part) have been giving each other silly string. It was time for the silly string war. Lee captured some fun action.

Our yearly Santa Hat family picture.

The kids spent a lot of time building their Lego sets.

Marie Antoinette visited!

Elden and the other kids have been loving the new Hot Wheels track addition.

Cal really, really wanted an AT-AT. It took him several hours to build it.

Lee and the kids had fun setting up the Hot Wheels track in different positions.

Yep, still building.

Clark finished his Lego agent semi-truck.

Elden and Lee build Elden's Ninjago rhinoceros.

Shanna received some fun kitchen things for the kitchen she and Haley received last year.

Cal finally finished the At-At.

It was fun eating and snacking throughout the day. For dinner on Christmas night our tradition is to have BBQ pulled pork nachos. I took the idea from my sister Deb.

Christmas day we also walked over and delivered some goodies to our friends. They were going to join us Christmas morning to see the kids open their presents, but one of them was sick, so they weren't able to come.

We had a great day staying at home, being together, playing with toys and eating yummy food. We enjoyed chatting with some of the cousins, my siblings and parents Christmas afternoon/evening on google+. It's always fun finding out what they did that day too and what presents they received. Christmas day was great, and went too fast! Hope you all had a fantastic day too! Soon it will be 2015!!!